When it comes to building a country house, it almost always implies that all “amenities” will be equipped in the yard. These include a shower (bathroom), toilet, bathhouse, and washbasin… This means that in any, even the most miserable weather, one will have to curse everything and make one’s way to such “amenities.” And only Read more…
In rural estate-type houses, and even in simple country cottages, of which there are countless numbers today, it’s unlikely to get by without some kind of stove — Russian, Dutch, or a simple “burzhuyka” — even if “we have gas in our apartment.” It’s just that “blue fuel” is still far from available everywhere and Read more…
Every year, while digging the soil with my family on the backyard plot where a tractor simply had no room to turn around, I thought: “I need a motoblock-cultivator.” Of course, I could, by denying myself something else, buy such a mechanism. But, thinking that it would be used only a few days a year, Read more…
Our dacha plots are small. And when every square meter counts, allocating space for garages and utility buildings is no easy task. Tent structures can be a quite acceptable solution. Especially when considering the time, and even more so—material costs. For assembling the frame of practically any of the three tent variants that have become Read more…
Mankind has made and described a huge number of the most diverse garden benches. But two reasons did not allow us to take advantage of centuries of experience: the absence of special materials and the presence of suitable ones. Almost always after the construction of a more or less significant building, scraps of pine timber Read more…
Not everyone is up to building a house or a large outbuilding, even if they have the desire. Some lack experience, others lack time. But some work can still be done yourself, while saving quite significant money. For example, installing a foundation plinth (otmostka) around the house. I ordered my country timber house from a Read more…
A stationary gazebo on a dacha or garden plot is a great convenience: under its roof, both in the heat and in bad weather, it’s nice to sit in the fresh air, rest from daily chores, and have tea by the samovar. However, there isn’t always room for such a permanent structure; and its immobility Read more…
When developing the project and building the sauna-bathhouse on the garden plot, I proceeded from the fact that it would require as little materials and time as possible. And this, it seems to me, was successful, mainly due to the reduction in the dimensions of the structure, achieved by replacing the large washing compartment with Read more…
Motor cultivators, mini-tractors, potato harvesters… For economically strong farms and homesteads, such equipment has long ceased to be a novelty. The lot of the less fortunate, it seems, remains only hope in oneself, in one’s ability to create solid mechanical helpers almost from “scrap,” and on extremely simple, yet reliable agricultural tools—a “gift from deep Read more…
Regular subscribers know that our publication pays considerable attention to individual construction. By regularly publishing various house projects and thus communicating with reader-builders, we have found that many novice builder-cottagers have a poor understanding of the house construction process itself. Finnish builder and teacher Renti Jormalainen tells about the initial stage of building a home. Read more…
